Speakeasy: Death

For many of us, death is an incredibly confronting topic – the stuff of solemn silence, implacable grief or a very particular kind of fear. For others, it’s a defining mystery of living, a necessary finality; even its own kind of miracle. How much can we actually know about death?
Joined at the table by Pia Interlandi, Hayley West and Elizabeth Flux, we’ll chew over the nature of death – and our ways living with it. Whose deaths matter? Do we lack death literacy? Who is commemorated or erased in death? How do we ritualise grieving, healing, and celebration after death … and why?
Join us for dinner (and drinks), with an entree of keynotes followed by an (actual) main course, and roundtable conversations between dinner guests and speakers.
Ever had something big to discuss, only to be told not to make a meal of it? Well! At this year’s Emerging Writers’ Festival, no subject is off the menu and three particularly complicated subjects are on it.
Swing by for a great meal (and a drink or two) as we tackle timeless dinner-table taboos with some of the sharpest thinkers we know. We’re talking sex, death and money. Dine out on that.
All Speakeasy meals are vegetarian, with vegan and gluten-free options available at point of booking.
Arrive at 6.30pm for a 7pm start.
Presented in partnership with the Emerging Writers’ Festival 2018.
Featuring
Featuring

Pia Interladi is a fashion designer holding a PhD in Architecture and Design from RMIT University, where in 2013 she completed her doctoral study [A]Dressing Death: Fashioning Garments for the Grave. A full time academic in the School of Fashion and Textiles as RMIT, she has also completed Funeral ... Read more

Artist and death literacy advocate Hayley West is located in Castlemaine, Central Victoria. Hayley co-hosts Death Cafes in her community and has recently been appointed to the board of the Castlemaine Cemetery Trust. The Departure (currently transient) is Hayley’s studio and advocacy space where t... Read more

Elizabeth Flux is an award-winning writer and editor whose fiction and nonfiction work has been widely published. She is a judge for the 2019 Award for and Unpublished Manuscript for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and is an editor for Melbourne City of Literature’s ‘Reading Victoriaâ€... Read more
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